D&D 5E Balancing Warlocks on a 1-2 combat per day workload.

[rgoodbb]

As a DM, if you knew you were going to play a homebrew campaign with a maximum one or maybe occasionally two combat encounters in each whole day, how could you help balance the warlock?

• Proficiency bonus spell slots per initiative?
• One more slot per short rest then presently allocated
• Charisma bonus slots per short rest
• When an enemy fails its first spell save DC against your spell, the slot is not used…
• Other?

Obviously you couldn’t match the slots of other full casters as you already cast at highest level and you also have those wonderful invocations. But the flavourful background of the warlock is a roleplaying dream. How may one incentivise? What to do? What to do.



Simple fixes sought.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think the easiest way would be to just move them to the same spellcasting as the other fullcasters. They'd lose their short rest recovery and the auto-scale, but with a full spellcasting and their invocations + boons +class features, it evens out.

Or

Give them their extra spell list as extra spell known, and give them 1 free casting of each of them once per day.

 

[Haplo781]

Use the 3.5 warlock

 

[ph0rk]

If these are longer encounters, I’d give them 3x their short rest slots in one big pile for the entire adventuring day.

I’d do the same for battlemasters and bards (inspiration) and monks.

 

[Steampunkette]

Warlock | Level Up

a5e.tools

Level Up shifted them to Spell Points. Gives 'em a bit more flexibility for the day so they don't blow all their spells in one shot. Add in the different Eldritch Blast implementations and they're pretty choice.

As far as recovery mechanics go, you could allow them to recover a spell slot if they land a killing blow on a reasonable enemy (No bag of rats) as a way to offset the loss of spellpower they might have during the day.

 

[jgsugden]

There is no reason to fix them. They get two high level spells and then can blast away with Eldritch Blast. That is more than enough for 2 combats in a day.

 

[ph0rk]

There is no reason to fix them. They get two high level spells and then can blast away with Eldritch Blast. That is more than enough for 2 combats in a day.

I would not agree. They will feel strapped for resources alongside long rest casters without their short rests, particularly on one encounter days, and especially if those encounters go on to ten rounds or more.

 

[DND_Reborn]

There is no reason to fix them. They get two high level spells and then can blast away with Eldritch Blast. That is more than enough for 2 combats in a day.

I agree.

Other?

No fix needed.

Many of my "adventuring days" are just one or two combats, and warlocks work perfectly well as designed, especially if they can get a short rest in between the two combats.

I would play them AS IS first, and only if you find them lacking look to buff them.

 

[CreamCloud0]

As a DM, if you knew you were going to play a homebrew campaign with a maximum one or maybe occasionally two combat encounters in each whole day, how could you help balance the warlock?

• Proficiency bonus spell slots per initiative?
• One more slot per short rest then presently allocated
• Charisma bonus slots per short rest
• When an enemy fails its first spell save DC against your spell, the slot is not used…
• Other?

Obviously you couldn’t match the slots of other full casters as you already cast at highest level and you also have those wonderful invocations. But the flavourful background of the warlock is a roleplaying dream. How may one incentivise? What to do? What to do.



Simple fixes sought.

I might give them a flat bonus per day/long rest to their total number of available castings, probably their proficiency bonus’s worth, in addition to their regular casting capacities, so at level 1 they start the day with 3 spell uses: 1 standard one that replenishes on a short rest and 2 bonus ones that don’t, at level 2 they start with 4 slots: 2 standard and 2 bonus.

 

[ECMO3]

As a DM, if you knew you were going to play a homebrew campaign with a maximum one or maybe occasionally two combat encounters in each whole day, how could you help balance the warlock?

• Proficiency bonus spell slots per initiative?
• One more slot per short rest then presently allocated
• Charisma bonus slots per short rest
• When an enemy fails its first spell save DC against your spell, the slot is not used…
• Other?

Obviously you couldn’t match the slots of other full casters as you already cast at highest level and you also have those wonderful invocations. But the flavourful background of the warlock is a roleplaying dream. How may one incentivise? What to do? What to do.



Simple fixes sought.

I don't think the Warlock necessarily needs more balance and these examples would be way OP. If you are going to change the mechanic, just change it to PB per long rest.

While the spell slots are limiting compared to a full caster, especially on days which have no short rests, but I think there are larger imbalances on other classes including Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger and Rogue and giving the Warlock more would widen the gap bewtween the Warlock and those classes.

Warlocks have subclass abilities which are top tier and a POC/IOCM with a Sprite is throwing out a poisoned arrrow every single turn as a bonus action and that arrow is saved against your spell save and put enemies to sleep on a 5. That plus agonizing blast and 2 spells is plenty to keep them balanced on 2 fights a day.